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Pakistan is lobbying Russia ahead of a crucial meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) this month.

India and the US are among the countries that are pushing the FATF to act against Pakistan for failing to comply with UN Security Council Resolution.

Pakistan is lobbying Russia ahead of a crucial meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) this month that is expected to review a compliance report from Islamabad on action taken to choke funding to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawah.

India and the US are among the countries that are pushing the FATF to act against Pakistan for failing to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 1267 that calls for cutting off funding to proscribed groups such as the LeT, founded by Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks.

Tasnim Aslam, special secretary in Pakistan’s foreign ministry raised the issue of the FATF with Russian deputy foreign minister Oleg Syromolotov during a meeting on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Foreign Office.

“Both sides discussed issues relating to the forthcoming meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), to be held in Paris on February 18-23, 2018,” the statement said.

Aslam informed about Syromolotov “measures taken by Pakistan to implement its international obligations and intentions of some FATF Member States to use the forum for their political ends” – an apparent reference to India.

It was largely due to the pressure from the FATF that Pakistan detained Saeed, who has a $10 million US bounty on his head, in January last year. However, Saeed was freed 10 months later on the orders of a panel of judges, which said the Pakistan government had furnished no evidence against the founder of the LeT.

At its plenary in Buenos Aires during November 1-3 last year, FATF asked Pakistan to submit a compliance report on action taken against the LeT and JuD before the upcoming Paris meeting.

Pakistan has stepped up efforts to improve its ties with Russia following greater convergence between the two countries on Afghanistan. Russia has also begun supplying military hardware to Pakistan, angering Moscow’s traditional ally New Delhi.

During her visit to Russia, Aslam met deputy foreign minister Igor Morgulov on Wednesday and discussed Afghanistan and other bilateral and regional issues.

Both sides expressed satisfaction at the “positive trajectory of bilateral relations” and agreed to deepen cooperation in trade, energy, defence and education. Zamir Kabulov, the special representative of the Russian president on Afghanistan, also attended the meeting.

The two sides discussed the situation in Afghanistan and its implications for the region. “They reiterated that there was no military solution to the Afghan problem and the negotiated settlement through an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process was the only viable option”, according to the statement.

Aslam spoke about measures taken by Pakistan to manage the border with Afghanistan and the need to repatriate more than three million Afghan refugees from Pakistan.

SAINT PETERSBURG: A
homemade bomb blast at a supermarket in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg injured 10 people Wednesday, officials said, sparking a
probe into attempted murder.

"According to preliminary information, an explosion of
an unidentified object occurred in a store," a spokeswoman for Russia's Investigative
Committee, Svetlana Petrenko, said in a statement.

The blast was caused by a "homemade explosive device
with the power equivalent to 200 grammes of TNT filled with lethal
fragments," she said.

"The investigation is looking at all possible causes of
what happened," she said, adding that a probe for attempted murder had
been launched.

The incident comes several months after Russia's second city
was rocked with a metro bombing in April which killed 16 people and amid
concern that hundreds of Russian citizens who travelled to fight alongside
jihadists groups abroad could pose a mounting security challenge back home.

Rattled by a one-two
punch of betrayal and scandal, Donald Trump on Thursday tried to block the
publication of a bare-knuckle book that portrays his White House as a fetid
stew of backbiting, incompetence and dysfunction. The publishers
responded by moving the release date up by four days to Friday. Trump instructed his
lawyers to prevent the release of “Fire and Fury: Inside
the Trump White House” -- an expose by author and political muckraker Michael
Wolff -- which quotes key Trump aides expressing serious doubt
about his fitness for office. The book -- which
paints Trump as mentally unstable and far out of his depth -- quotes at length
his former ally and chief strategist Steve Bannon, who also received a “cease and
desist” order from Trump’s attorneys. “Your publication of
the false/baseless statements about Mr. Trump gives rise to, among other
claims, defamation by libel, defamation by libel per se, false light invasion
of privacy, tortious interference with contractual relations, an…